RE: REU Rom Socket?

From: Randy Winchester (randy_at_MIT.EDU)
Date: 2000-01-12 16:36:39

At 09:22 AM 1/12/2000 +0800, [COPLIN, Nicholas.] wrote:
>	[COPLIN, Nicholas.]  So was there ever a CBM implementation of
>RAMDOS available in ROM?

The RAMDOS in KeyDOS ROM is the CBM implementation.  It was used in
accordance with the conditions stated in the release notes.  There were a
number of changes made to the BASIC loader portion of RAMDOS to make it
function from a ROM and to take up less valuable space.  RAMDOS uses the
largest portion of KeyDOS and I had a lot of other utilities I wanted to
shoehorn into 32K.

The patch to recognize REUs larger than 512K was a third party freeware
addition.  I tested it with 512K, 1MB and 2MB REUs.

>1) the burst load support for C64 files, is this available from C64 mode, or 
>is it a "load and transfer" from C128 mode like another utility I've come 
>across? I thought burst hardware was disabled once in C64 mode?? 

You're right.  Burst load is not available from C64 mode.  This routine is
based on another "LOAD 128 GO 64" that was making the rounds.  There are
some major benefits from running it from ROM as some modifications allow
longer C64 programs to be loaded and there's no code in memory to do it.
Also, the whole thing is executed by cursoring over a program name in a
directory listing and pressing F4.

>3) is all the GEOS functionality built into the ROM also? C64 and C128? 

The GEOS SuperRBoot is for rebooting GEOS from an REU.  It gets its
reliability from running entirely from ROM.  It's great for recovering from
GEOS crashes if you're using an REU, because even if the computer is
completely hung, you can momentarily shut it off and back on without losing
the REU contents.  The problem with some of the other GEOS rebooters is
that if disk drives have been renumbered from what GEOS expects when it
last used them, the process will fail.  A companion utility, ACTIVATOR
simplifies switching between GEOS and C128 native mode by restoring the
reset switch and STOP/RESTORE key combination to their normal functions.
It's a lot easier and far more foolproof to get back to 128 mode by hitting
the reset button, and a lot easier to get back into GEOS by pressing the
two keys to load SuperRBoot from ROM than anything BSW ever devised.

>4) the price you indicate is for "hard" version (ROM and book), do you have 
>a "soft" price (I can burn EPROMS and printout the manual). US to 
>Australian exchange rate kills...

I haven't considered it.  I might eventually release the source code,
because there is interest, but I it wouldn't be fair to  other distributors
to let the ROM images escape.


Randy Winchester, randy@mit.edu
MIT Cable Television, mitcable@mit.edu, http://web.mit.edu/mitcable/www
Room 9-050, x3-7431
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